Proskauer Rose LLP at a Glance

Uppers

Downers

The Buzz

“Great sports/entertainment”

“Sick offices”

“Burns through young associates”

“Fratty”

About Proskauer Rose LLP

Proskauer Rose is practically synonymous with
"sports law"-clients include Major League Baseball, the NFL, the
NHL, and the NBA. Although flashy, this reputation shortchanges the
firm's incredibly diversified work, which features top-notch
corporate, litigation, tax, private client services, entertainment,
and labor and employment practices.

From Small Business to Big
Business

Firm forefather William R. Rose opened up shop
in downtown Manhattan in 1875 at the sprightly age of 21. Rose's
first clients were local retailers, and his skill soon caught the
attention of New York's burgeoning business class, who hired Rose's
firm to represent them in corporate and personal estate matters.
The firm's reputation (and headcount) continued to grow, and by
1907, name partner Benjamin Paskus joined the firm. The outfit
founded a successful tax practice following the Sixteenth
Amendment's passage in 1913, and Paskus, a tax specialist, was so
in-demand that clients lurked outside his home in the hopes of
getting extra advice.

The addition of former appellate judge-and
crony of four-time New York Governor Alfred Smith-Joseph Proskauer
in 1930 ushered in a new era for the firm, which was renamed
Proskauer, Rose & Paskus. Proskauer's leadership helped define
the firm in the modern era, and his passion for music forged
connections with Carnegie Hall and some of America's most prominent
musicians, including Leonard Bernstein, whose estate is still
handled by the firm. Around the same time, an associate named
Alfred Appel helped French design house Hermès establish a New York
corporation. Hermès is represented by the firm to this day, and is
considered its longest continuing client.

Labor, Layups, and Lead
Passes

One of Proskauer's cornerstone practices,
labor law, was established in 1939 by partner Burton A. Zorn, who
counted among his clients the insurance giant Metropolitan Life and
the United Parcel Service. The firm's sports law practice began in
1963, thanks to partner George Gallantz, who represented a young
organization called the National Basketball Association. Three
years later an attorney named David Stern joined the firm-Stern
went on to serve as the NBA's counsel, executive vice president,
and, finally, commissioner (he retired in February 2014). The firm
also counts Gary Bettman, commissioner of the National Hockey
League, among its notable alumni. Beyond labor and sports,
Proskauer boasts a nationally recognized Private Investment Funds
Group as well as litigators who handle cutting-edge intellectual
property matters and defend major white collar cases, including
those arising out of the recent economic crisis.

Worldwide Expansion and a New York
Move

By the turn of the century, Proskauer was well
on its way to establishing itself as a global player, opening shop
in Paris, London, São Paulo, Hong Kong, and Beijing. The firm's
Asia and UK offices focus on core practice areas that include
private equity, mergers and acquisitions, and capital markets.
International expansion has been a critical component of the firm's
strategy to provide a comprehensive platform of services to its
corporate clients. The firm stayed busy on the home front as well,
expanding into Chicago in April 2008 while continuing to
aggressively recruit new lawyers in its Boston office, which opened
in 2004. In a move that some said heralded the beginning of a
post-financial crisis commercial real estate recovery, Proskauer
moved its New York headquarters to a new 1.1-million-square foot
tower in Times Square in early 2011, leasing 14 floors of the LEED
Gold-certified building.

Proskauer advised on a number of big ticket M&A transactions
including advising cancer drug maker Celgene Corp. in its $7.2
billion acquisition of Receptos; Ascena Retail Group, Inc. in its
$2 billion acquisition of retail giant Ann, Inc., the parent
company of LOFT and Ann Taylor; AccorHotels, in its $2.9 billion
agreement to acquire three of the most prestigious global luxury
hotel brands: Raffles, Fairmont, and Swissôtel; and Carlyle Group's
$1 billion strategic investment in PA Consulting Group.

Big Cases

Proskauer secured a major false advertising bench trial victory
for Church & Dwight against its top competitor in the market
for home pregnancy tests. Proskauer also won big for Biosig
Instruments in a case before the Supreme Court in which Nautilus
challenged the validity of Biosig's heart rate monitor patent. The
firm achieved a favorable result for T-Mobile in a high-stakes
commercial litigation matter relating to a third-party's breach of
fiduciary duty and fraud, and coordinated their response to class
action lawsuits for a recent data breach. The firm continues to be
involved in the most significant sports cases, including the
defense of several major college conferences in the Grant-in-Aid
and other student-athlete cases.

International Growth

Proskauer has strengthened its presence in key international
markets with recent high profile hires in Asia and Europe. The
London office, with 50+ lawyers and growing, has become a hub of
transactional activity and a private equity powerhouse. In the last
year alone, the firm has structured funds in Europe representing
more than $6.6 billion in committed capital, advised on over 70 LP
investments and advised on more than 25 secondary transactions
totaling over $3 billion. For its notable private equity clients,
including Apollo, Carlyle, Quilvest Private Equity and Lion
Capital, the London-based M&A team closed transactions in 2015
exceeding $6 billion in aggregate value.

October
2015Pro(skauer) Bono

Underscoring Proskauer's commitment to community, the firm
recently became one of the few firms with a full-time pro bono
partner, William Silverman, a former federal prosecutor with
extensive civil and criminal experience. In a recent matter,
Proskauer helped secure the release of a wrongfully-convicted man
who had been incarcerated for 25 years. This case was referred by
the Innocence Project, a national litigation and public policy
organization that works to exonerate wrongfully-convicted
individuals from which Proskauer now has a strong pipeline of
matters. The firm has a long history of pro bono and corporate
social responsibility and is focused in particular on supporting
veterans and military families, women in Africa, and education.

September
2015Going for Gold

Proskauer is helping the city of Los Angeles go for gold in its
bid to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The firm is
advising the Los Angeles 2024 Exploratory Committee and played a
crucial role in convincing the United States Olympic Committee to
select L.A. as the U.S. bid city in September 2015. Proskauer is
now working to build global support for L.A.'s bid and win the vote
of the International Olympic Committee members next year, which
would bring the Olympics back to America for the first time since
2002.

July
2015Beyond the "Black Swan"

The firm has defended more companies in "unpaid intern" wage and
hour class actions, and taken those cases further, than any firm in
the country, including the precedent-setting win in the "Black
Swan" case, where Proskauer defended Fox Searchlight Pictures, and
convinced the Second Circuit in July 2015 to adopt its positions in
their entirety and to reject the standards for determining
"employee" status under the FLSA that were advocated by both the
plaintiffs and the Department of Labor. Clients in these cases
include Barneys, CBS, Condé Nast, Donna Karan, Fox Group, Gawker
Media, Marc Jacobs, Oscar de la Renta, Sony Music, The Walt Disney
Company, and Tory Burch.